Why must Britain pay for Brussels' reckless spending?

THE EU is built on institutionalised contempt for the peoples of Europe.

That disdain shines through its hatred for democracy and independence, reflected in its destruction of national borders, its promotion of mass immigration and its reduction of member states to the status of regional provinces within its malign empire.

Public opinion counts for nothing in the relentless drive by the unelected cabal in Brussels to create a federal superstate.

The same arrogance can be seen in the EU’s scandalous mismanagement of its own finances.

Within the 24 miles of corridors in the European Commission’s HQ abuse is rife and waste endemic.

Because the EU’s officials are not answerable to the peoples of the nation states they are utterly indifferent to the concepts of prudence or budgetary control.

The full extent of this mentality was revealed this year when the EU Budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski admitted that Brussels overspent its budget last year by a shocking £20billion.

Trying to explain this further descent into reckless prodigality the commissioner made an excuse about “late invoices” but that only demonstrates the epic incompetence of the EU.

It is barely three months since the EU was granted an emergency top-up of £10billion, a move that has just fuelled more irresponsibility.

Self-satisfied pro-Europeans love to sneer at the follies of US capitalism yet in its addiction to creative accounting the EU far exceeds anything achieved by oil company Enron.

But it is certain that even in the wake of this new Brussels scandal there will be no reform, no sackings, no inquiries.

Instead, as usual, the taxpayers of Europe will be expected to provide the cash to plug the black hole.

In practice that means we in Britain are probably going to have to fork out another £2.4billion to cover this new debt.

Brussels will carry on squandering while we will be bullied into another huge transfer of cash into its bottomless money pit

It is bad enough that we have to pay £14billion every year in our annual contribution for the privilege of being ruled by these federalist ideologues.

It is even worse that we have to pay for their catastrophic mistakes.

The Eurocrats can constantly get away with their financial ineptitude because the governments of the member states, including our own, let them.

If we refused the demand from Brussels for another £2.4billion the commission would be forced to change its ways or face bankruptcy.

The latter could hardly be a more welcome development.

Sadly that is not going to happen. As it has shown in its ferocious maintenance of the eurozone even at a crippling human cost the EU puts the survival of its own ideological project above all else.

So Brussels will carry on squandering while we will be bullied into another huge transfer of cash into its bottomless money pit.

The prospect is outrageous given that within Britain we have been through a long programme of public-sector austerity as the coalition struggles to reduce the huge deficit left by Labour.

Now the financial frivolity of Brussels threatens to undo much of the tough, necessary work undertaken by the Government.

While we have seen cuts in everything from policing to welfare the EU has remained completely insulated from financial realities.

Brussels is like a protection racket that fails to provide any protection.

This is an organisation so dysfunctional that its own auditors have not given its accounts a clean bill of health for the past 18 years.

Brussels has an annual budget of £133billion but nearly all of this is frittered away on dubious subsidies, bureaucratic extravagance, self-serving propaganda and useless international aid.

Incredibly, the EU spends £2.4billion a year on marketing and publicity to promote the European integrationist cause.

Further examples of its chronic waste can be found in the £150million a year thrown away on shuttling the European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg.

Incredibly European officials take an average of 14.6 days off sick every year, three times the rate of British employees.

These Eurocrats also have far longer holidays, higher pay, lower taxes, shorter hours and better conditions than equivalent British staff.

So much EU cash just disappears or is spent idiotically as in the practice of dishing out subsidies to tobacco farmers while campaigning against smoking.

When its Court of Auditors in 2013 found “serious failures” in the award of EU contracts for a £13billion pipeline between Hungary and Romania the EU said with typical insouciance, “We interpret the rules differently.”

Many of the worst excesses can be found in the EU’s foreign service, which employs 500 chauffeurs and has 137 so-called embassies abroad.

Absurdly the EU has 37 staff in Papua New Guinea and 32 in Mozambique.

The overseas aid racket is also propped up with our money to the tune of £6billion a year.

Last month it was announced that the EU is to give £31million to Barbados to “assist” the tiny Caribbean island “in leaving the present economic crisis behind”.

Why on earth does such a duty fall on Britain?

Our only escape from this kind of nonsense is to leave the EU otherwise we will carry on paying for our own destruction by the profligate Brussels imperialists.